Oolite Bulletins

I left a torus station orbiting a TL14 system, to find the GalCops firing on a fugitive. I joined the attack and received a "Thank you for your assistance" message. A few more mil laser bursts and fugitive-dude was history.

He left plenty of cargo behind, but as I was hoovering it up, the GalCop blips on my radar started flashing blue/red. When I checked, I'd become an Offender! How's that for gratitude!

You probably lasered something "official" without realsing it.

JohnnyBoy wrote:

I left a torus station orbiting a TL14 system, to find the GalCops firing on a fugitive. I joined the attack and received a "Thank you for your assistance" message. A few more mil laser bursts and fugitive-dude was history.

He left plenty of cargo behind, but as I was hoovering it up, the GalCop blips on my radar started flashing blue/red. When I checked, I'd become an Offender! How's that for gratitude!

Same thing happened to me (all the time!) when running Realistic Shipyards 3.01. Since the upgrade to 3.02 and the corrected roles, that's stopped happening. May not be the case with you, but I figured I'd mention it.

JohnnyBoy wrote:

I left a torus station orbiting a TL14 system, to find the GalCops firing on a fugitive. I joined the attack and received a "Thank you for your assistance" message. A few more mil laser bursts and fugitive-dude was history.

He left plenty of cargo behind, but as I was hoovering it up, the GalCop blips on my radar started flashing blue/red. When I checked, I'd become an Offender! How's that for gratitude!

Any chance you accidentally 'tagged' the Torus? If you'd accidentally hit a Viper, you'd be Fugitive.

Captain Hesperus

What did you pick up? was it firearms, narcotics or slaves?

Amen Brick wrote:

What did you pick up? was it firearms, narcotics or slaves?

ISTR that anything you scoop has any affect on your legal status. It's only if you launch with any illegal cargo that you get an Offender tag.

Captain Hesperus

Scooping contraband suffers no penalties, your status only gets affected if you launch from a station with contraband on board.

Ah right, now I don't have to panic if I pick something naughty up.

The important thing is to remember to sell the stuff once you've docked, because if you forget, it comes as a bit of a surprise when you're minding your own business and the Galcops start on you! Especially if you're on your way to a corporate state and there's dozens of 'em!

Yup... happened to me, too. The only permanent blot on my otherwise shiny legal record. I was docking at (coincidentally?) a torus, and just as I was sliding in some bozo crashed into the station, scattering debris all over the place. Thinking "Ooh! Free stuff!" I immediately launched and set about tidying up. Unfortunately I had forgotten I was still carrying one -- one! -- measly ton of narcotics I'd acquired on the way in. Instant (but fortunately very minor) Offender. Tut.

Yes, I've just done that. Got a message to meet with a naval commander at Gebiisso (G4) and in my haste to leave, I forgot to sell the narcotics/firearms that I'd picked up on the way.

I think that the only other time that I've so quickly become an offender was when I left a station, and instead of pressing 'I', I accidentally pressed '9' - and promptly detonated everything in a 25km radius. I think that the coriolis station was none too pleased...

If your e-bomb is the tab key, and you're running windows, alt-tab is your nemesis. It makes you jump out of your seat when the blast goes off and you're not expecting it.

TGHC wrote:

Scooping contraband suffers no penalties, your status only gets affected if you launch from a station with contraband on board.

That may depend on what OXPs you have installed. I suffered the exact same problem as the original poster, but only after having installed GalacticNavy and the "incident" happened within a Sector Command system. I experimented and determined that simply hypering into a sector command system with contraband instantly tags you an "Offender".

I'm not sure if its the hyper jump, or just being near to GalNavy while carrying contraband, since in sector command systems there is always a squadron posted at the wichpoint beacon. Since I experienced the "Offender" status ONLY after scooping the cargo canister in the earlier case , I concluded that simply carrying contraband nearby GalNavy ships earns you Offender status.

That will certainly be documented, explained and rationalized in the Galactic Navy-documentation (at least I would consider it not only good style, but a necessity for an OXPer to explain what his/her OXP does, and what not).

So on the player's side it would be a good idea to find out what exactly the OXP you just have installed does to you and to your game-play. And if you don't want that thing to be done to you, don't install the OXP (or modify it to your liking). In other words: Read the ReadMe.

that will certainly be documented, explained and rationalized in the Galactic Navy-documentation

Actually, it won't be... because I can't replicate it.

Galactic Navy ships use the same old boring "scanForOffenders" command that all the other AI's use. But, just to be sure the military scan class didn't have some magic of its own, I jumped into a Sector Command with a clean rating and a hold full of slaves, zipping around Navy ships like celebrity paparazzi. No response.

Too bad really, because smuggler interdiction would be kind of cool.